How to get HP Thunderbolt Dock 120W G2 working again, after failed firmware update

[Mark-Guildford1]

I was recently prompted to update the firmware of my HP Thunderbolt Dock 120W G2 docking station.  The pop-up box said it would take around 10 minutes.  So I started the process.  But after 90 minutes, it was still stuck on the last line.  I therefore had no option but to ignore the advice and remove the docking station cable from my laptop.  After I had done that, the docking station was able to charge my laptop, the Ethernet connection was working fine, and my USB dongle for my keyboard and mouse was working fine.  But there was no video output from the docking station to either of my two monitors, and the docking station wasn't detected at all in the Thunderbolt Control Center app on my HP laptop.  I contacted the HP helpdesk, who tried to manually update the firmware of the docking station again, but without success.  They said that I would have to replace the docking station.  I kept trying to update the docking station firmware, but it kept detecting a DisplayPort Hub version of 0.0.0.0, and it couldn't detect the the Thunderbird controller at all, so it just timed out each time (see screenshot below). 

I eventually found a post on this forum which explained how to resolve this problem, but the explanation wasn't quite detailed enough for me, and I couldn't figure it out.  Eventually I did manage to figure it out, so I'm just posting a more detailed explanation here, for anybody who encounters this same problem:

• From the HP download page for this docking station (HP Thunderbolt Dock 120W G2), I clicked on the “Download” link for “HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 - Firmware” under the section “Docks-Firmware and Driver (2)”

• I then went to my Downloads folder to find the file, which was called “sp136180.exe”, and I clicked on it to run it. At this point, you need administrator privileges to go any further.

•  It starts running the HP app, and I clicked through all the usual agreements

•  I eventually got to the following screen. Instead of clicking on “Next”, I instead just made a note of where the installation files were being saved, which in my case was at C:\SWSetup\SP136180

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• I then went into the folder at C:\SWSetup\SP136180\Firmware\Cypress\Dependency, and I double-clicked on the file called “System_Update.bat”. It launched some things in the command prompt window. It took a long time to complete these. It looked for a while like it wasn’t doing anything. But I just waited until I got confirmation that it was all finished.

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•  I then went into the folder at C:\SWSetup\SP136180\Firmware\Intel, and double-clicked on the file called “ThunderboltUpdaterDevice.exe”

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•  Then I finally went into the folder at C:\SWSetup\SP136180 and double-clicked on the file called “HPFirmwareInstaller.exe”

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• If I recall correctly, I think there was one point where I had to re-boot my machine, but I can’t remember when exactly that happened. Anyway, once I had completed all of the above steps, my external monitors worked again.  As per the person who originally posted this solution, nothing actually got updated on the docking station itself, so I’m not sure why I was prompted to update it in the first place. But anyway, it is now detected again in the Thunderbolt Control Center app, and everything is working fine again.

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